Stars & Stripes Team Facing Elimination

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) _ Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes team needed a victory Friday to avoid being eliminated from the challenger competition of the America's Cup.

The four-time Cup winner, sailing for the New York Yacht Club again after an acrimonious 20-year separation, trailed American rookies Seattle's OneWorld Challenge 3-0 in their best-of-seven race quarterfinal repechage. The winner advances to the Cup semifinals.

Prada of Italy led Sweden's Victory Challenge 3-0 and could also wrap up its repechage series in promising winds Friday.

Conner, whose name has been associated with the America's Cup for four decades, has sailed only once in 28 races in the challenger series so far, guiding Stars & Stripes to a clear win over Italy's Mascalzone Latino in the second round.

At 60, the man who was both the first American to lose the Cup and the first to regain it runs his campaigns from shore and trusts the sailing to younger men.

Spokesman Keith Taylor said Conner was at work in his office in Auckland on Friday and had no plans to join his team on the Hauraki Gulf.

That showed confidence on Conner's part that the repechage series against OneWorld was not yet lost.

"The Auckland spring is full of possibilities," Taylor said.

Conner's team of Cup veterans, the oldest team at the 31st Cup regatta, had seen too many turnarounds in past Cups to concede a series before its last race.

Though it had to win all four of its remaining races against OneWorld to avoid elimination, no one doubted that could be achieved, Taylor said.

"Today is just race one of a four-race series."

Tactician Tom Whidden of Essex, Connecticut, Conner's ally in five Cup campaigns since 1979, regaled teammates this week with stories of Australia II's comeback win over New York's Liberty in 1983.

The Australian yacht with its famous winged keel trailed 3-1 in the best-of-seven series before beating Liberty in three straight races to end the New York Yacht Club's 132-year hold on the Cup.

Conner was at the helm of Liberty in that series and was shunned by New York for almost two decades for his part in the loss.

When Conner recovered the Cup off Fremantle, Western Australia, in 1987, performing his own remarkable comeback to do so, he claimed it for the San Diego Yacht Club and not for New York.

Conner has taken part in nine Cup campaigns, winning sport's oldest trophy in 1974, 1980, 1987 and 1988.

He remains an active and competitive sailor, winning the North American Etchells Championships for the fourth time earlier this year. But he has had to work harder to attract funding for his campaigns, at the same time he has taken on a more managerial role.

Team Dennis Conner remains a participant in actions before the Cup Arbitration Panel and international jury which seek to have OneWorld disqualified for obtaining design secrets from other teams.

If those actions succeed, the New York team could find another route to the semifinals.